My first thought after a juvinile turkey vulture was a crow with some kind of affliction.
Is that a cowbird?
I’ve seen plenty of cowbirds and grackles. I don’t think this matches them at all. I think the cowbird is quite a bit smaller.
Female common grackle. I was trying to find a picture that showed the upper leg where it looks more robust and feathered. If the thin little passerine lower legs were sunk into the grass and we were just seeing the thighs so to speak, maybe that works. I can’t really see them in the flight shot. But, yeah I have some real doubts about that guess from the other aspects. And if you say you know common grackles and that wasn’t one, I believe you.
Not a cowbird. Possibly a grackle, but I think the head is far too pale, unless it had partial albinism.
Cool beans, @Tamerlane. I’ve seen it in other birds but not Grackles. But it doesn’t explain the leg feathers.
This is from a few days ago - one of our fox cubs was out in the garden just before dusk.
j
Cool!
We have five hens currently. One is post-menopausal (not laying, crowing) so we have four laying, giving us on average 3 eggs a day. The past two weeks my gf has noticed a decrease in eggs. She collects only one or two a day.
Last night she discovered why. A 7 foot long Central Rat Snake was consuming an egg. She came and got me and together we secured the snake in a feed-sack. We coexist with snakes; they keep our barn rat and mouse free, but they usually cannot get into our chicken’s nestboxes unless they reach gargantuan size.
Normally my gf would hike into the woods and release the snake, but it was 11:00 pm. So we took the snake for a drive in the country, releasing him five miles away.
I bet it was a bitch getting the seatbelt on him.
My gf told me at least three times, “DON’T LET HIM LOOSE”.
Conditions were unusual for this summer, so far. Low humidity, light winds and 2’ seas. We took our 17’ boat out on the ocean for a ride and encountered many dolphins. I think they were feeding but some were jumping completely out of the water and others looked like they were playing with each other, rolling over on their backs and swimming in very small tight circles. We were close enough that could hear them breathing when they broke the surface. We watched for about 45 minutes and I could have stayed much longer. Maybe a mundane experience for some but I never get tired of watching them.
That’s beautiful. I remember having a similar experience on a whale-watching trip when we went to Alaska. When the dolphins spotted our boat and all headed our way, it was like a pack of dogs running to greet us. I just about started crying.
For me it was seeing bald eagles on an Alaska cruise. The first one took my breath away. By the 533rd, I was yawning.
I posted upthread about seeing a peregrine falcon in downtown San Jose.
Today I saw a hawk standing right on the sidewalk in a busy part of downtown, although there were no pedestrians around at that moment to scare him away. He was standing on something he had killed, which I’m guessing was a young rat.
I was in my car at a stoplight and had a chance to watch him and try to memorize his markings so that I could Google him later. The best I can tell, he was a young Cooper’s hawk.
Something more mundane. Today on the bike I was slogging up a hill on a road where the hedges run right up to the tarmac/asphalt. I rounded a blind corner and happened upon a crow having a snack on squirrel roadkill. As I got real close I had to change gear, which startled the crow, and it flew off. The instant it was airborne, two magpies jumped out of the hedge, had barely landed by the squirrel when they saw me - and they flew off as well. A magpie double-take - it almost made me laugh; but there’s a lot to unpack there.
- One crow outnumbers two magpies? Would three have been enough to drive the crow off?
- Does a crow eating roadkill usually have “lesser” birds queuing up for their turn?
- What comes after magpie? Is there a regularly observed order?
(If anyone else can add to this observation, please feel free to substitute your local birds).
j
Saw this on my walk this morning - I assume someone here can tell me what kind of bird it is? First time I’ve ever seen one.
Next to our neighborhood is some (for the time being) rangeland that occasionally have cattle on it. And they usually hang out on a far ridge. But last night when going to the mailbox I noticed they were on the near ridge that backs right up to our neighborhood. On returning, I checked and I could see them from the chair I’m sitting at now.
In a year or two it’ll all be little boxes made out of ticky-tacky.
Last winter we once saw ~20 pronghorn there.
Doesn’t seem like they spend too much time coming up with the name…
I was going to guess Black-bodied Yellowbird - wouldn’t I have felt silly?
And thanks. It looks like he is a bit out of his normal range (I’m in Missouri)